'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎15v] (35/100)

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name of Kharfa where he doubtless stopped to refresh himself,
the direct road thence to Riyadh would leave Laila and the other
oases well away to the right—hence his omission, natural enough
m an Arab, to mention them. Striking across the Rajd plateau
by the route above described he would naturally enough draw
rem in the Insalah downs, the name of which either he or Pal-
grave garbled into the fancy form given by the latter, who is
doubtless solely responsible for the " village", and thence,
following the direct route along the edge of Tuwaiq, thus avoiding
Kharj, he would have rested awhile in the Safra, a term commonlv
used to sigmfy any bare stony tract of upland, and travelling
by night he would have passed through or close to Hair without
noticing it and arrived at Riyadh on the morning of the third
day from Kharfa after a march of three full nights and part of
performance 1 ^ yS ^ a Tery dlfferent proposition to Palgrave's
So much for Palgrave. The province of Aflaj comprises
wo distinct districts, one wholly situated on the Tuwaiq plateau
and consisting of a number of scattered oases in the beds of various
ravines the description of which I will reserve till I come to the
account of my return journey, when I visited them, and the
other, the more important section, lying wholly in the plain
beyond the eastern extremity of the Tuwaiq slop . This section
f province comprises a vast, roughly circular plain
an^Lwr % ty ^ in dianieter from west to east
and lather less than that from north to south It is bounded
on the north by the Rajd plateau and on the west by t'he TuwalJ
range, while the other two sides are contoured by the semi-
circular „m of the Biyadh tract, which at the south-west corner
and on the n T 7 T 7 t0n , CheStlle edge of slo P e
and on the north-east is overlapped as already noted by a pro
jecting arm of the Rajd plateau. 7 P
towarfs th tW theS t e t, llnU ! S 'u® Plain is more or less flat except
GTadhara of S r f' , ' 3 r0Ugh 111116810116 tract . called
area and the RiS ele y atl0 ".' In terposes between the settled
beLTraversed n H v 7 i t from west to east '
issuW from thp direction by shallow sandy torrent beds
annual fln 1 fi J section of the province and bringing down
Xvted nortiof fT r tl16 0as6s - Tlle ^tled and
ultivated portion of the district comprises an oblong strip Iving
north-east by south-west in the middle of the plain, measuring